ISLAM: Is there a ¢â‚¬ËœChristian ¢â‚¬â„¢ Approach? A way of confronting the truth about Islam vis-a-vis Christianity irenically?
Some notes from my recent reading: People Like Us ¢â‚¬“ How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West (Waleed Aly, 2007). Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy (ed. David Claydon, 2009). The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom (Mark Durie 2010).
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First, key quotes from a couple of credible world leaders.
Tony Blair, ex British Prime Minister: ‘The voices of extremism are no more representative of Islam than the use in times gone by of torture to force conversion to Christianity represented the teachings of Christ’ [1]
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: ‘No one can deny that at its core Islam is entirely consonant with the principle of fundamental human rights, including human dignity, tolerance, solidarity and equality… No one can deny… [that] Islam… bestowed rights upon women and children long before similar recognition was afforded in other civilizations. And no one can deny the acceptance of the universality of human rights by Islam States’ [2]
And now these:
* The British Secret Service reported in 2007 that around 200 million Christians are subject to persecution [3]
* In a May 2007 report, the Congressional U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom nominated six Muslim countries among its list of the worst 11 nations for religious persecution [4]
* Open Doors, an organization which supports persecuted Christians each year prepares a World Watch List of 50 nations (and some regions) where Christians are persecuted for their faith: in the January 2010 WWL three quarters of these were majority Muslim areas (and nine of the worst 10:
North Korea topped the list for the most severe persecution). [5]
And as I write this, today ¢â‚¬â„¢s headlines from the evangelical Barnabas Fund: Pakistan: Christian man Burned to Death; Iran: Church Leader Released on Bail; Egypt: Christians Trapped Inside their Church as Mob Attacks; Nigeria: Another Massacre of Christians in Jos; Pakistan: Christian Aid Agency Mourns Brutal Killings of Colleagues ¢â‚¬â„¢ [6] . And from Australian news-sources: Growing number of Muslim men [in Australia] taking multiple wives; Muslim leader wants elements of Sharia law in Australia [7]
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The world changed dramatically on September 11, 2001. It was one of those occasions where most of us remember where we were when we watched with horror the saturation-TV coverage of the planes ploughing into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Militant Islam – especially al-Qaeda – got our attention, brilliantly. 2,973 victims and the 19 hijackers died; over 3000 children were left without one or more parents. In a 1998 fatwa Usama bin Laden had written: “For more than seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples” [8]
What are we to make of this ‘clash of cilizations’? [9]
1. Human Rights Declarations
The UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights (Article 1). Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance (Article 18).
The Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed at UNESCO in 1981 (‘a declaration for mankind, a guidance and instruction to those who fear God’) [10] was followed by the “Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam” (CDHRI), adopted in August 1990 by the 19th Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers. Article 24 of the CDHRI states that it is “subject to the Islamic sharia,” and its article 25 confirms that sharia “is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of this Declaration.” So sharia has supremacy, and the 1990 CDHRI has primacy ¢â‚¬” in the view of its authors ¢â‚¬” over all universal instruments, including the International Bill of Human Rights (UDHR included) and all other U.N. covenants. [11]
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2. An Islamic Perspective
Wikipedia tells us Waleed Aly is an Australian lawyer, Muslim academic and rock musician. He has been a member of the executive committee of the Islamic Council of Victoria and served as the Council’s head of public affairs. He is a frequent media commentator on Australian Muslim affairs and is currently a lecturer at the Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University, Melbourne. In People Like Us he says there is a gulf in Australian society between Muslim and non-Muslim, fuelled by fear and ignorance but, more significantly, by arrogance. Perhaps his most-quoted paragraph responds to the idea that Islam needs to undergo a reformation, akin to the 16th-century Reformation in Christianity. His response: ‘But if you’re even vaguely familiar with classical Islamic tradition, you’ll recognise at once that we’ve had our reformation, and it’s called al-Qaeda.’
In a thoughtful review of Aly’s book, Barry Peters, who has lived in Islamic countries, is critical of Aly’s perspective, due to Aly’s ‘privileged upbringing in genteel and tolerant Melbourne [which] has sheltered him from the over-crowded, poverty-ridden and corrupt cities of Asia, Africa and the Middle East where most Muslims live.’
Peters commends Aly’s referring to holocaust denial as ¢â‚¬Ëœuncivilised nonsense ¢â‚¬â„¢ (p.6), his positive statements about some Jews (p.238), and defending the West against Muslim ¢â‚¬Å“saints ¢â‚¬ such as Sayyid Qutb (p.258) – comments which ‘would have him branded a Muslim ¢â‚¬Å“Uncle Tom ¢â‚¬ in many Islamic countries…
‘Generally,’ Peters continues, ‘local imams in Melbourne accept the anti-semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion as genuine ¢â‚¬“ Aly rightly exposes it as a forgery. Although he decried the violence of 9/11 as contrary to his preferred version of Islam, Muslim students in Melbourne schools openly celebrated the attacks. It is important to recognise the ideas in his book as minority opinions from a Western-educated dissenter, rather than revealing a widely-held outlook within the Muslim world.’
More: ‘To Aly ¢â‚¬â„¢s credit, he exposes the much-quoted ¢â‚¬Å“greater/lesser jihad ¢â‚¬ saying as a fraud (p.153). Muhammad never said it – it was concocted in the Middle Ages, emerging posthumously from the Prophet ¢â‚¬â„¢s mouth.’ Aly admits that ‘Islamic scholarship has been stagnant for a long time (p.235). It is small wonder that a Muslim such as Pakistan ¢â‚¬â„¢s Pervez Musharraf could make a statement about the umma (worldwide Muslim community) like: ¢â‚¬Å“Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race ¢â‚¬ (BBC Feb. 2002) and be certain that no-one could contradict him… The book reveals several attempts to dodge responsibility for Islam ¢â‚¬â„¢s failures, with the blame shifted onto others. [But] Aly is rightly critical of many countries in the Muslim world for their lack of human rights (p.69)… One can only hope that, like Wesley in England, Aly ¢â‚¬â„¢s more enlightened views will become widely accepted within the household of Islam.’
[12]
Waleed Aly quotes the American scholar Hamza Yusuf addressing a London Muslim audience in September 2005, as follows: ‘I don’t like the term Islamophobia, because a phobia is an irrational fear. I think many people have instead a rational fear of Islam and Muslims in that they have valid reasons to be worried’. Aly comments: ‘It is difficult to disagree’ [13]
Next article – http://jmm.org.au/articles/23669.htm
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[1] ‘Islam and Muslims in the World Today’ conference, June 2007. Full text – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6719153.stm .
[2] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=3128&Cr=Robinson&Cr1 . For a critique of Robinson’s position: Human Rights and Human Wrongs (David G. Littman) http://article.nationalreview.com/267689/human-rights-and-human-wrongs/david-g-littman
[3] www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=9669
[4] www.uscirf.gov/images/AR_2007/annualreport2007.pdf
[5] http://members.opendoorsusa.org/site/DocServer/WWL2010_test.pdf?docID=5801
[6] http://barnabasfund.org April 1, 2010
[7] http://www.ausprayernet.org.au/ April 2010
[8] February 22, 1998. Nation, 2/15/1999, quoted in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks
[9] The theory was proposed by political scientist Samuel P Huntington, though the term itself was first used by Bernard Lewis in an article in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly – ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’. [http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/summer01-02/polsumm01-3.pdf
[10] Al Qur’an, Al-Imran 3:138
[11] David G. Littman, “Islamism Grows Stronger at the United Nations”, Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1999, pp. 59-64. See the relevant Wikipedia articles for more.
[12] Barry Peters November 2007 http://207.57.117.110/magazine/issue/2008/4/people-like-us-how-arrogance -is-dividing-islam-and-the-west-by-waleed-aly Full text: http://jmm.org.au/articles/20519.htm
[13] Barry Peters November 2007 http://207.57.117.110/magazine/issue/2008/4/people-like-us-how-arrogance-is-dividing-islam-and-the-west-by-waleed-aly
Full text: http://jmm.org.au/articles/20519.htm ]
[14] Aly, 29
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